What'sup?

Q: Why did the Town of Payson take the streetlight out at the intersection of Highway 87 and Houston Mesa Road? It just makes a dangerous intersection more dangerous.

A: "It's still there," Public Works Engineer LaRon Garrett said with a chuckle. "It's just laying on the ground." He said the Arizona Department of Transportation is doing some work on the intersection, including the installation of a right-turn lane onto Houston Mesa Road eastbound. To accommodate ADOT, the town got its "stuff" the streetlight and a fire hydrant out of the way.

"When they're done and it should be sometime in August we'll put them back up," Garrett said.

Q: I live in Alpine Heights and have garbage pickup with Waste Management. Lately my garbage has been picked up very late or even the following day. Do they have a new route driver, and why don't they return phone calls?

A: "We're doing some auditing and training a driver in that area, so our routes are picked probably a little bit later than usual, but they are being picked up on Wednesday," said Waste Management's Melodi Deaton.

Starting Aug. 1, the company has a new policy and system in place that should take care of the problem of returned phone calls.

"What we're now doing is called service machine, and it creates a ticket on the customer's account when we get a call," Deaton said. The new system replaces "a bunch of Post-It notes," and will make it possible to implement the new policy to return all calls within 24 hours.

Q: Why do we get so much air traffic early in the morning on Saturdays around 6:30 and 7 a.m.?

A: Payson Municipal Airport Manager Ted Anderson said it's part of a long tradition.

"From what I understand historically, since the (Crosswinds) restaurant opens up at 6 a.m., we get people coming up from the Valley for breakfast to start their day. Saturday and Sunday are our two busiest days of the week."

Anderson said several groups from the Valley fly into Payson periodically.

"The Arizona Pilots Association was recently up here for a meeting on a Saturday," he said. "We're close enough to the Valley that we provide a nice getaway. It's about a 30-minute flight depending on the aircraft."

Q: Why has the Roundup continued to run letters to the editor about Roy Haught, who pleaded guilty to negligent homicide for his role in the death of James Cooper, after publishing a commentary by reporter Jerry Thebado that urged the community to stop feuding over the issue?

A: It is our hope that the community will heal and move past this divisive event after openly examining the issue. One of the newspaper's roles in a community is to foster healthy public debate, even on emotionally charged subjects. Squashing public debate on any issue, regardless of our personal feelings on the matter, would betray our responsibility to the people of the Rim country.